Welcome!

Welcome to our blog site - its more of a personal opinion than our website blog and we'd like to sometimes challenge views we come across as tutors and we welcome feedback. More generic blog posts to offer help with educational issues are on our website - thanks for visiting :)

Friday 6 August 2010

Home Tutor: Teachers & Tutors

Home Tutor: Teachers & Tutors

Teachers & Tutors

Do teachers feel threatened by tutors?

Based on over 12 years experience of tutoring on a 1-2-1 basis and of running a tutoring agency and on feedback from students, teachers and parents I still think teachers fall into 2 broad categories:

1. Teachers who come across as threatened by tutors and perceive them as unnecessary and maybe even a hindrance.
2. Teachers who value tutors as providers of additional support for their student, working together with the same aims and objectives - doing what's best for the student.

The latter of course is how tutors see themselves. As private tutors we act as a 'silent' and hidden workforce. Where schools and teachers allow, a good tutor will work with the school and teacher - our aim is to help the student get the best possible result. As tutors we are more disposable than teachers and expectations of parents possibly higher. We must get results and noticeable results/improvement, often within a short timescale, or we're out of work - there's no school, class or anything else to hide behind.

It's a win-win situation for the school and teacher. Private tuition costs the parents not the school. At no cost to the schools, the teachers and their schools benefit from improved grades.

When trying to work with schools unfortunately responses like these are all too common :
 'We don't need tutors'
'Our students are doing fine as it is'
'We're getting good results on our own'

BUT, often a school head or teacher that's made similar comment is from a school where many of our private tutees attend! Only recently I tried to approach the head of a local primary to ask if there was scope for working together and the response was as above. However, I have tutored several students from the school and over the previous year we'd had a lot of parents of pupils at the school ask for extra tuition via 121 Home Tutors.

Because the schools continue to get results it could be they are unaware their students are getting extra help? But with recent studies showing the prevalence of private tuition - according to some research, over a 1/4 of state school students have a private tutor; figures for the private sector being considerably higher - it seems likely private tutoring at least contributes towards good results. Isn't it therefore more helpful to parents if the schools can point parents in the direction of a good tutor? The point here is that good results may be because of good teachers, good tutors and /or parents but are more likely to be a combination. Teachers needn't feel threatened by tutors. Teachers. Schools. We will work for you and not cost you a penny!


If you are a head, or teacher from a Manchester, Stockport, Wilmslow, Macclesfield, Cheshire area local school and would like to discuss how we at 121 Home Tutors can work together we would love to hear from you.